SWAMPSCOTT — The Town Election Review Committee met Wednesday evening to discuss its plans for a Voter Education Initiative aimed at increasing voter turnout among younger voters.
In 2024, Town Meeting approved the creation of the committee, which is tasked with making recommendations to the Select Board and Town Meeting regarding potential changes to municipal elections to encourage more youth participation.
During previous meetings, the committee outlined its areas of focus, including the voting age, the age of eligibility for municipal office, and the date and duration of municipal elections. The committee has also emphasized the importance of early voting.
According to the Secretary of State’s office, lowering the voting age for municipal elections would require a special act of the legislature. While some communities have requested acts to change the age for local elections, none of the proposals have passed.
The Election Review Committee is composed of representatives from several boards and committees, including the Select Board, School Committee, Swampscott for All Ages, and the Commission on Disability. It also includes a resident and registered voter between the ages of 18 and 22, two residents ages 16 and 17, and one registered voter from each of the town’s six precincts.
The committee has noted in past meetings that more than 19% of the town is either under 18 or over 65 and that 18 to 25-year-olds had the lowest voting turnout.
Committee Co-Chair Marta Sirota expressed hope for increasing voter participation.
“I want to get more people knowledgeable about the process because we talked at the last meeting about a youth council, but I think we should also expand beyond that and think about what else we could do,” Sirota said.
She proposed collaborating with local businesses to set up an informational booth where community members could learn about voter registration.
“Completely non-political, but maybe something where people could stop by and actually get more information about voter registration,” Sirota explained. She floated the idea of hosting it potentially at a farmer’s market.
Committee member Suzanne Wright supported the idea.
“It would be nice to have an educational table,” Wright said. “You could have a polling booth out there with a ballot, and talk to kids and parents about how to vote, I think the farmer’s market would be a great place to do that.”
She added, “We might not be able to have a table ready for the Special Town Meeting on March 19, but it’d be nice to give people a postcard with a QR code to take them to the town voting website, or someplace they can see information.”
Committee Secretary Margaret Somer suggested hosting an event at Swampscott High School to engage potential first-time voters.
“Maybe some event that attracts people that are going to vote someday, or people between the ages of 18 and 25, that we’d like to encourage to be more involved,” Somer said.
Committee member Lauren Shresta proposed having an event at the town’s block party in August.
Committee member Eugene D. Schultz suggested incorporating the initiative into Swampscott High School’s civics curriculum.
“I don’t know how Swampscott High School is doing it, but it might be a really good civics project under the statewide civics framework, where every 10th grader has to have a civics project,” Schultz said.
He added that he believed the effort could be an ongoing initiative.
Co-Chair Sirota proposed holding classes to educate residents on the voting process.
“Maybe if the TV studio could produce some video on ‘how to vote,’ and had the youth council running that on TVs, I think more people would look at that than go to a class,” Wright said.
Schultz noted that if a youth council were approved, it would likely handle much of the outreach moving forward.
“We talked about expanding the age, but if the goal is to grow voters in young people, then capturing them at that high school age would help them continue voting once they leave high school,” Schultz said.
The committee also discussed using the town’s newsletter to share voting information and continues to explore strategies for expanding outreach.
